President Gustavo Petro's incorrect statements about the health system: it is not true that the EPS debts amount to $100 billion.

Several of the statements President Gustavo Petro made during his presidential address and the subsequent Council of Ministers meeting on July 15 have generated controversy due to their tone, their legal implications, and, above all, the veracity of the data used to support his assessment of the health system.

Therefore, at EL TIEMPO, we reviewed some of these statements in detail in a fact-checking exercise to compare them with official figures, technical reports, and independent analyses. These are some of the statements made by the president yesterday and their comparison with official data from reports by the Superintendency of Health, the Comptroller's Office, and other state entities:

One of the most controversial statements was the president's assertion that "the owner of Keralty is a criminal in Colombia" and that he would do everything possible to "get him out of the country," even if it meant going to the King of Spain. This accusation arises without judicial support, given that Keralty's president, Joseba Grajales, has not been convicted in the country and therefore cannot be branded a criminal.

In fact, this Wednesday, Grajales sent a letter to Keralty Group employees and the public in which he stated that the national government has unleashed a "systematic campaign of disinformation, riddled with lies, slander, and insults." The executive announced that the company will initiate legal action against President Petro, members of his team, and third parties involved.

"We will file charges before national and international courts not only against President Gustavo Petro, but also against the members of his administration who have collaborated in spreading these lies, and against any person or entity—public or private—who attempts to damage, by action or omission, the image of this group, its institutions, or the people who comprise it," Grajales warned.

Following the presentation of the Comptroller's Office report, which states that EPS debts amount to 32.9 billion pesos, the president affirmed yesterday that the figure in the report prepared by the entity's experts is incorrect, and that the debts are actually greater than 100 billion pesos.

“The debt as of December 31, 2024, is $32 trillion. I have to tell you that the debt figure is incorrect; they don't have economists. The figure must be brought to constant pesos from 2020 to 2024. The second methodological error is not bringing the liabilities left by the liquidations to their present value. The debt is real, even if accountants who act as economists erase it, and we're talking about more than $100 trillion pesos,” said President Petro.

This claim also lacks technical support and is not supported by official figures from the National Health Superintendency or the Comptroller General's Office. Nor is it inferable whether, as the President claims, the EPS financial statements are adjusted for inflation. In fact, EPSs are governed by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for reported values, so both liabilities and assets are stated at market prices. This methodology recognizes changes in the valuation of these companies' obligations and rights at any given time.

According to available data, the debt recognized and settled by EPSs to third parties reported in the financial information catalogs submitted to the National Health Superintendency as of 2023 is $24 billion. This is according to data available in the Superintendency's FT004 form, which in any case does not include the debts of Nueva EPS, which has not reported any debts for two years and manages 26% of the system's members and more than $24 billion in annual resources.

On the other hand, according to the Comptroller's Office's technical report, debts amount to $32.9 trillion pesos by 2024; this report is the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis ever conducted on the EPS portfolio in the country.

In this regard, both the Superintendency of Health and the Comptroller's Office agree with the debt figures reported by the EPSs, and differ with what President Petro said, who, without presenting a technical report to support his statements, stated that the debt is higher than that reported by the entities responsible for analyzing such data.

In fact, once President Petro finished his speech, the Ministry of Health issued a statement confirming that the accumulated debt of the EPS amounts to $32 billion.

pesos, denying the claims of President Gustavo Petro.

President Petro also presented a table showing the reduction in debt for six intervened EPSs. Four of them (Sanitas, Famisanar, Emsanar, and SOS) saw their debt decrease, while two others (Nueva EPS and Asmet Salud) saw their debt increase. In this regard, the president asserted that if all the intervened EPSs were combined, the debt of these entities has been reduced by "707 billion."

However, the presentation omits, without explanation, the debt of three EPSs that are also currently under intervention. These are Coosalud, with a reported debt of $2.5 billion, Savia Salud for $1.2 billion, and Capresoca for just over $300 billion. In total, this omission amounts to $4 billion, according to the Comptroller's Office's debt report.

Furthermore, the same report from the Comptroller's Office states the following on page 41: "Despite the intervention measures by the National Health Superintendency, the intervened EPSs do not comply with one or more indicators of financial conditions and solvency, so their conditions have not improved after their intervention, a situation that is worrying since these measures are given within the framework of correcting financial and administrative failures, a situation that is not evident."

The president also asserted that the State has transferred $87 billion pesos and the EPS only recorded 85 billion, leaving a shortfall of just over $2 billion. "We have transferred 87 billion and the EPS only recorded 85 billion, delivered by legal obligation to the State of Colombia. In other words, they say they received 85 billion and we transferred 87, almost 88. Where does the money go? The difference there is just 2.71 billion. (...) Here, 2.71 billion were stolen that same year, and there is no judicial process, and this should be reported to the superintendent, to the courts, to the prosecutor's office. This is a crime against humanity. The prosecutor should say yes, whether it takes a while or not, well, she'll see. I hope the Council of State doesn't overthrow her," Petro said.

However, this statement would only be possible to verify if the financial information of all the EPSs in the system were public. Currently, Nueva EPS, under the control of the Supersalud (Health Superintendency), has not submitted its financial statements since 2023. Given that this insurer enrolls approximately 26% of the population and manages more than $24 billion pesos, it is impossible to know the aggregate financial status of the health system.

The president asserted during his national television address that "we don't know how health resources are used." That's not true. It is possible to know how health resources are spent. For example, the Individual Service Provision Registry database reports a cutoff of 557 million visits for 2024. Nearly 6 out of 10 Colombians used some health service. There were 181 million consultations (general and specialized), more than 335 million non-surgical procedures (laboratory care, imaging, rehabilitation, etc.) were provided, and $17.5 million in surgical procedures were performed.

Furthermore, the official SISMED system reports the sale of nearly $20 billion pesos worth of medications through the institutional channel, 60% of which is for the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and antihemorrhagic and antithrombotic medications. The ministry is aware of all this information.

By 2024, according to the High Cost Account, the system will serve approximately 610,000 cancer patients, 2.3 million diabetics, nearly 190 people with HIV, 1.3 million kidney patients, and 6.2 million people with hypertension. All of these services are duly identified individually by the system and reported to the Ministry of Health.

According to the president, Colombia has "one of the worst healthcare systems in the world," which "is destroying the Colombian state." This claim is false. A 2022 study by the Colombian Association of Hospitals and Clinics (ACHC), which analyzed the systems of 94 countries around the world, ranked ours 39th. That same year, The Economist's Health Inclusion Index ranked us 22nd out of 40 countries evaluated, most of them high-income. What is true is that all these indicators have worsened.

In 2024, the Health Inclusion Index placed us in 26th place. And although the ACHC has not renewed its study, it has broadly questioned the deteriorating conditions for providing health services in the country and the payment to hospitals and clinics, which have been deteriorating and whose backlogs continue to grow. However, these are not the only areas where the system has deteriorated.

Although he attacked the Comptroller's Office technicians and experts who prepared the technical report on debt, the president stated that the document "says that the health reform must be approved, or this whole thing will collapse." This statement is untrue. The Comptroller's Office report, which speaks of $32.9 billion pesos in debt, does not guarantee that the government's reform project must be approved.

Environment and Health Journalist